"_Ach zo_," he answered, teutonically for the moment, from a.s.sociation with the Baron. "But suppose it all true, dearest, and that I"m going to come to life again, what does it matter? It can"t alter _us_, that I can see. Could anything that you can imagine? I should be Gerry for you, and you would be Rosey for me, to the end of it." Her a.s.sent had a mere echo of hesitation. But he detected it, and went on: "Unless, you mean, I remembered the hypothetical wife?..."
"Ye--es!--partly."
"Well! I tell you honestly, Rosey darling, if I do, I shall keep her to myself. A plaguing, intrusive female--to come between _us_. But there"s no such person!" At which they both laughed, remembering the great original non-exister. But even here was a little thorn. For Mrs.
Harris brought back the name the Baron had known Gerry by. He did not seem to have resumed it in his dream.
The jetty ran a little way out to sea. Thus phraseology in use. It might have reconsidered itself, and said that the jetty had at some very remote time run out to sea and stopped there. Ever since, the sea had broken over it at high tides, and if you cared at all about your clothes you wouldn"t go to the end of it, if you were me. Because the salt gets into them and spoils the dye. Besides, you have to change everything.
There was a dry place at the end of the jetty, and along the edge of the dry place were such things as cables go round and try hard to draw, as we drew the teeth of our childhood with string. But they fail always, although their pulls are never irresolute. On two of these sat Sally and the doctor in earnest conversation.
Rosalind and her husband looked at each other and said, "No!" This might have been rendered, "Matters are no forwarder." It connected itself (without acknowledgment) with the distance apart of the two cable-blocks. Never mind; let them alone!
"Are you going to sit there till the tide goes down?"
"Oh, is that you? We didn"t see you coming."
"You"ll have to look sharp, or you"ll be wet through...."
"No, we _shan"t_! You only have to wait a minute and get in between...."
Easier said than done! A big wave, that was just in time to overhear this conversation imperfectly, thought it would like to wet Sally through, and leaped against the bulwark of the jetty. But it spent itself in a huge torrential deluge while Sally waited a minute. A friend followed it, but made a poor figure by comparison. Then Sally got in between, followed by the doctor.... Well! they were really not so _very_ wet, after all! Sally was worst, as she was too previous.
She got implicated in the friend"s last dying splash, while Prosy got nearly scot-free. So said Sally to Fenwick as they walked briskly ahead towards home, leaving the others to make their own pace. Because it was a case of changing everything, and dinner was always so early at St. Sennans.
"Let them go on in front. I want to talk to you, Dr. Conrad."
Rosalind, perhaps, thinks his attention won"t wander if she takes a firm tone; doesn"t feel sure about it, otherwise. Maybe Sally is too definitely in possession of the citadel to allow of an incursion from without. She continues: "I have something to tell you. Don"t look frightened. It is nothing but what you have predicted yourself. My husband"s memory is coming back. I don"t know whether I ought to say I am afraid or I hope it is so...."
"But are you sure it is so?"
"Yes, listen! It has all happened since you and Sally left." And then she narrated to the doctor, whose preoccupation had entirely vanished, first the story of the recurrence, and Fenwick"s description of it in full; and then the incident of the Baron at Sonnenberg, but less in detail. Then she went on, walking slower, not to reach the house too soon. "Now, this is the thing that makes me so sure it is recollection: just now, as we were coming to the jetty, he asked me suddenly what was the Baron"s name. I gave a wrong version of it, and he corrected me." This does not meet an a.s.sent.
"That was nothing. He had heard it at Sonnenberg. I think much more of the story itself; the incident of the wheel and so on. Are you quite sure you never repeated this German gentleman"s story to Mr. Fenwick?"
"Quite sure."
"H"m...!"
"So, you see, I want you to help me to think."
"May I talk to him about it?--speak openly to him?"
"Yes; to-morrow, not to-day. I want to hear what he says to-night. He always talks a great deal when we"re alone at the end of the day. He will do so this time. But I want you to tell me about an idea I have."
"What idea?"
"Did Sally tell you about the galvanic battery on the pier?" Dr.
Conrad stopped in his walk, and faced round towards his companion.
He shook out a low whistle--an _arpeggio_ down. "Did she tell you?"
repeated Rosalind.
"Miss Sa...."
"Come, come, doctor! Don"t be ridiculous. Say Sally!" The young man"s heart gave a responsive little jump, and then said to itself, "But perhaps I"m only a family friend!" and climbed down. However, on either count, "Sally" was nicer than "Miss Sally."
"Sally told me about the electric entertainment at the pier-end. I"m sorry I missed it. But if _that"s_ what"s done it, Fenwick must try it again."
"_Mustn"t_ try it again?"
"No--_must_ try it again. Why, do you think it bad for him to remember?"
"I don"t know what to think."
"My notion is that a man has a right to his own mind. Anyhow, one has no right to keep him out of it."
"Oh no; besides, Gerry isn"t out of it in this case. Not out of his mind...."
"I didn"t mean that way. I meant excluded from partic.i.p.ation in himself ... you see?"
"Oh yes, I quite understand. Now listen, doctor. I want you to do me a kindness. Say nothing, even to Sally, till I tell you. Say _nothing_!"
"You may trust me." Rosalind feels no doubt on that point, the more so that the little pa.s.sage about Sally"s name has landed her at some haven of the doctor"s confidence that neither knows the name of just yet. He is not the first man that has felt a welcome in some trifling word of a very special daughter"s mother. But woe be to the mother who is premature and spoils all! Poor Prosy is too far gone to be a risky subject of experiment. But _he_ won"t say anything--not he! "After all, you know," he continues, "it may all turn out a false alarm. Or false hope, should I say?"
No answer. And he doesn"t press for one. He is in a land of pitfalls.
"What have you and your medical adviser been talking about all the while, there in mid-ocean?" Fenwick forgets the late event with pleasure. Sally, with her hair threatening to come down in the wind, is enough to stampede a troop of nightmares.
"Poor Prosy!" is all the answer that comes at present. Perhaps if that uncontrolled black coil will be tractable she will concede more anon.
You can"t get your hair back under your hat and walk quick and talk, all at the same time.
"Poorer than usual, Sarah?" But really just at this corner it"s as much as you can do, if you have skirts, to get along at all; to say nothing of the way such loose ends as you indulge in turn on you and flagellate your face in the wind. Oh, the vicious energy of that stray ribbon! Fancy having to use up one hand to hold that!
But a lull came when the corner was fairly turned, in the lee of a home of many nets, where ma.s.ses of foam-fleck had found a respite, and leisure to collapse, a bubble at a time. You could see the prism-scale each had to itself, each of the millions, if you looked close enough.
Collectively, their appearance was slovenly. A chestnut-coloured man a year old, who looked as if he meant some day to be a boatswain, was seated on a pavement that cannot have soothed his unprotected flesh--flint pebbles can"t, however round--and enjoying the mysterious impalpable nature of this foam. However, even for such hands as his--and Sally wanted to kiss them badly--they couldn"t stop. She got her voice, though, in the lull.
"Yes--a little. I"ve found out all about Prosy."
"Found out about him?"
"I"ve made him talk about it. It"s all about his ma and a young lady he"s in love with...." Fenwick"s _ha!_ or _h"m!_ or both joined together, was probably only meant to hand the speaker on, but the tone made her suspicious. She asked him why he said that, imitating it; on which he answered, "Why shouldn"t he?" "Because," said Sally, "if you fancy Prosy"s in love with me, you"re mistaken."
"Very good! Cut along, Sarah! You"ve made him talk about the young lady he"s in love with...?"
"Well, he as good as talked about her, anyhow! _I_ understood quite plain. He wants to marry her awfully, but he"s afraid to say so to her, because of his ma."
"Doesn"t Mrs. Vereker like her?"
"Dotes upon her, he says. Ug-g-h! No, it isn"t that. It"s the lugging the poor girl into his ma"s sphere of influence. He"s conscious of his ma, but adores her. Only he"s aware she"s overwhelming, and always gets her own roundabout way. I prefer Tishy"s dragon, if you ask _me_."